


Heart of Gold

by orphan_account



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Underworld (Once Upon a Time)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:40:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22698007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Rumple and Bae meet in the underworld.
Relationships: Baelfire | Neal Cassidy & Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold, Baelfire | Neal Cassidy/Emma Swan
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	Heart of Gold

White smoke filled the air around him. He wasn't startled by it at all. It was a comfortable kind of smoke: more like a thick fog but with little cotton-candy pouffes all around. He reached out to try and touch some of the puffy white stuff, but his arm just passed through it. 

A figure was approaching him from afar, and he squinted his eyes... 

"Papa!" He called with surprise when he saw the figure.

Father and son hugged and started walking arm in arm. The white smoke cleared and revealed a delpapitated town that looked very familiar... It was the town of Storybrooke! 

Neal looked at his papa for an explanation. He saw Rumple stick his hand into his own chest and pull out a heart. The heart was big. It was big and soft and bright, and it was still beating.

"You're alive!" Neal whispered with fascination.

Rumple placed his heart gently over Neal's chest and softly pushed it in. Neal felt warmth spreading from his chest to the rest of his body.

"And now _you_ are," Rumple said with a happy smile.

Neal took a breath. He was breathing! He felt his heartbeat, and looked at his papa with awe.

Rumple smiled warmly and, arm still woven in his son's arm, gently nudged him ahead. 

"There are things you need to do, Bae," Rumple spoke a little too loud trying and failing to block out the thud behind them.

Neal jerked away from his papa's firm hold and looked back.

"Papa!" Neal ran to the body that dropped on the floor behind them.

Rumple grabbed onto his son and pulled him away from the body.

"Leave it," he said, "it's just a dead body-"

"It's _you_!"

"No, no! Bae," Rumple argued, "this," he waved at himself, "is me. That," he pointed at the dead body on the ground, "is nothing." 

But Neal didn't move from Rumple's dead body.

"Look, Bae, you don't have time for this. You have to make sure that Henry gets home; that _everyone_ gets home safely. I made a deal with Hades to open a portal and let them out of the underworld."

"Underworld? Is that where we are?"

"Yes. We came here. We did what we had to. We freed the noxious pirate from Hades's clutches, so, now everyone can go home."

"They are all here?" Neal asked standing up and taking his papa's arm again.

"That's why we have to rush." Rumple pulled his son away from the body and hurried to a group huddled together.

There was Emma and Henry! And Regina and Snow and Robin Hood and Charming.

"You're all _here_?"

"And now you're all leaving," Rumple said as Emma shrieked, "Neal!" And Henry ran to Neal and hugged him snugly, crying, "dad!"

Neal looked at his papa. He opened his mouth to ask-

But Rumple looked into Bae's eyes with significance and shook his head. Neal understood that he didn't want anyone to know, or to hear.

Hades appeared and pointed a wand at the air, which suddenly burst into a flaming portal. Hades was cackling as he said, "goodbye live ones!"

Everyone was clamoring into the portal. Bae looked back at his papa, but Rumple just smiled and said, "be safe, Bae."

Emma pulled Neal away before he could answer, and the portal closed.

Hades circled Rumple. 

"You stayed here, as promised."

"You sound surprised," Rumple rolled his eyes.

"Now that the pirate-dark-one is out of my reach, you promised to take his place. Follow me!"

Rumple followed Hades into the terrifying chamber. 

"I've been eager to get my hands on a live one," Hades said and his voice shook with excited anticipation. "This was a worthy investment for me! All I did was let a few pestering live ones out safely, and now I get a _live one_ -"

"I'm not alive." 

Hades stopped in his tracks.

" What."

Rumple smirked. "It's here, somewhere, my dead body. Go find it if you don't believe me.

The entire underworld heard Hades's disappointment.


End file.
